BTS: Grandma Wants a Book Update
👋 Hello, I’m Kevin Ferguson and welcome to 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 a memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Book summary in 50 words)
Behind the Scenes of the book: Here’s a funny story about the creative process of documenting the life of a living relative.
Grandma Wants a Book Update
One February evening, Grandma Kay sat in her family room, her eyes locked on the Warriors-Clippers game. Golden State was up by a couple of points late in the second quarter.
“When do I get to read my book?” she asked.
Like many 100-year-olds, Grandma Kay has refused to join the computer revolution, so peeking at these Substack chapters isn’t part of her routine. About a year ago, I printed out the first few chapters, and bound them as a Christmas gift to her.
“Next time I come, I can print some pages out for you,” I said.
Grandma Kay & her Centennial See's Candies Truck
Then I recollected how her neighbor, Delores, caught wind of the Substack chapters, from her daughter, Kristen, who works for the Los Altos History Museum. Kristen had reached out to me, because she wanted to interview Grandma Kay for a Los Altos oral history project. During that conversation, I shared with her the early-release chapters published online.
“You know Grandma, Kristen read the chapters out loud to her mom. I guess I can read a chapter to you now from my iPhone. Let me see.”
I scanned through Substack. I decided to read to her, Bonding with Gramps Through Baseball, the story about Grandpa taking me to a Giants game when I was seven years old. It was a special day of my childhood, because I was introduced to my favorite player - Willie Stargell.
It was a special day for Grandpa, because he was in charge. That meant we could eat whatever we wanted.
Grandma started to giggle when I read aloud about Grandpa’s eating habits when on the loose.
I started to slow my reading when I realized the end of the paragraph was going to put Grandma in a less-than-flattering light.
I read aloud: When I came home and told my mom that eating was half the game experience for Grandpa, Mom laughed. “That’s because he can’t do that with Grandma. She keeps a lid on his eating.”
I paused from reading.
Grandma’s silence turned to laughter. “That’s all true!”